The control of .ru is assigned to the Coordination Center for TLD RU (CC for TLD RU), the current official registry. On 1 January 2005 the former registry Russian Institute for Public Networks (RIPN) has fully stopped to provide operations for registrations directly under .ru but still carries out registry operations for the third-level domain names under .com.ru, .net.ru, .org.ru and .pp.ru.

RU-CENTER is one of the accredited registrars in .ru and also handles registration services for .su, the top-level domain of the Soviet Union, which was supposedly going to be phased out given the non-existence of the country it represents, but nevertheless has been accepting new registrations along with .ru. The legal status and ownership of .su is being contested by the ICANN, the Russian government and several Russian commercial entities.[citation needed]

Background

The creation of .ru in April, 1994 was preceded by a historical agreement in 1993 known as “The order of RU top-level domain administration”. According to the agreement, administrative and technical support responsibilities for the national domain RU were to be handed over to the Russian Institute for Public Networks (RIPN). In 2002 the administrative functions was handed over to the Coordination Center for TLD RU (CC for TLD RU).

Development of .ru

The national domain in Russia is developing rapidly according to self-regulatory principles. In 1993, an informal union, a RU Top-level Domain Coordination group including the leading Russian Internet providers as well as scientific and educational networks entrusted RIPN with RU domain administration.

In 1998, RIPN and RU top-level domain Coordination group established a domain registering association. Subsequently, in 2000, a new system of domain names registration in RU top-level domain was introduced. It was a distributed system of second-level domain name registration in RU top-level domain through accredited Registrars. The accredited registrars provide domain name registration and support services based on the "first come, first served" principle to the end-users so far.

RIPN became one of four co-founders of the Coordination Center for TLD RU but continued to support centralized technical aspect of the national domain operation. All organizational and administrative functions were handed over to the Coordination Center for TLD RU. To preserve the historical continuity, one of the Coordination center's committees was established on the basis of RU top-level domain Coordination group.

The new distributed registration system was tested in 2001 and implemented in 2005.

Second-level domains

Although direct registration of second-level domains is widespread, there are a number of preset second-level domains designated for third-level domains for various types of organizations and geographic locations. The full list is published on the Coordination Center for TLD RU website.[3]

Generic second-level domains

.ac.ru : scientific institutions and higher education

.com.ru : commercial organizations

.edu.ru : education

.gov.ru : Russia's federal government

.int.ru : international organizations

.mil.ru : the Russian military

.net.ru : organizations having to do with the Internet

.org.ru : noncommercial organizations

.pp.ru : individuals

Second-level domains for federal subjects of Russia

Note that some federal subjects have multiple second-level domains, and others (not listed below) have none.